Pages

Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Asset update: DONE!

So here is a screenshot of the final line up of my assets that made it into the level. Some were specifically designed to be featured in the tavern, like the Longbows for example, however many are designed to be not just used in the tavern courtyard but, spread throughout the level.

My main approach when it came to asset design, was first and foremost, research research research. I believe that is one of our main strengths as a group, that we have based our level and assets off of historical references and documents. We really pushed the idea of this being a Historical recreation, So that meant too much creative license was a bad thing in our eyes...except for when it came to things like the Bear tavern, which had only vague descriptions and no obvious depictions, things like that required smart concepting from the ground up.

I will leave individual renders for my design doc as there would be too many to be practical right now. Overall I'm quite pleased with them and its been exciting seeing each new object find a home in our Southwarke remade.
I will note that its not been an easy ride, and there have been many highs and lows, and many many late nights. But as a team we made it in the end and I at least am still alive, that's what counts! Plus everyone's work looks great and meshes really well together so I'm very pleased. Time to present! fun fun.

Normal/ spec maps not applied here: Smallest to tallest, its been challenging and fun, plus Ive learned a lot.

Here are some renders in 3ds max where I was attempting to simulate the lighting we have in our level, but I was also experimenting with idea's for my own personal presentation. I also wanted to show the most recent assets I created. Those being the Oil lamp, complete with particle Flame and the wooden tankard. Plus a poster I made advertising the Bear tavern and its in house musician for the night...

One of the things I was very keen on since the beginning was to have immersive audio playing from the tavern to draw the player to it and add interest because it is our key assets. Liam and I both worked together gathering appropriate sound files to use in our level. While I focused on the tavern area, music and animal sounds, Liam gathered ambient environmental sounds and anything else needed then worked his magic getting it all synced and working in game. I have to say it was a real halleluiah moment for us because we knew the sounds would add that extra level of depth to our level and they have turned out great!

Floating lights will have lanterns housing them.

The bear tavern sign I painted

In some of my earlier research I used examples of lighting found in Skyrim
and that has definitely influenced my goals for the lighting in our
level, Especially the Tavern, because it needed to feel warm and
welcoming like a public house would. And Skyrim pulled this off really
well, for example:

This must be a similar time of day to our level and It looks really nice, the only problem is it is very shadowy and much of the saturation has left the textures, so in order to showcase our hard work, we opted for a slightly warmer, brighter night, and used many artificial light sources like lanters and braziers. Both of which we found to be historical accurate, with room for some debate of course...

Ill finish up with another two early renders in Max where I was testing lighting, arranging some of my assets into the courtyard and making sure all the texture maps worked correctly. I've decided I love orange glow! 0.0